


Now Our Rainbow Is Gone

by Highsmith (quimtessence)



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Artist Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Canon Queer Character of Color, Canon Queer Relationship, Character Study, Developing Relationship, Enemies to Lovers, Feelings, Getting Together, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Light Angst, M/M, Pre-Canon, What Happened in Malta (The Old Guard)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:34:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26825953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quimtessence/pseuds/Highsmith
Summary: Whenever he startles awake in the night from these dreams, feverish and grasping at phantoms, Nicolò is already up and pointedly staring at him from across their tiny room, cots pushed into opposing walls, moonlight lighting his features into a grimace, as if Yusuf has personally inconvenienced him to the extreme by not quietly resting much like a mouse beneath a dank and damp floorboard, unseen and unheard by the master of the house. Often, rolling his eyes and tightening his jaw until the bones creak in Yusuf's ear, he lies back to face the wall, sleep-hungry and finally able to find repose now that Yusuf has decided not to make a nuisance of himself.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 28
Kudos: 240





	Now Our Rainbow Is Gone

**Author's Note:**

> I am fully aware I have two different WIPs I am late on... and that this is neither. Uh. *flails*
> 
> Title from "In This Shirt" by The Irrepressibles, which is a VERY Joe/Nicky song.

Dark and steep are his dreams—fiery faces dimming into shadows, the air brimming with burning laughter. Knowing Nicolò shares in his dreams should bring the comfort of un-alone-ness, but it doesn't lessen the burden of not knowing _why_ , and, thus, it is of no comfort at all. Often, Yusuf rises troubled, unmoored and drifting from dream to reality through a fog which scarcely seems to want to lift.

Whenever he startles awake in the night from these dreams, feverish and grasping at phantoms, Nicolò is already up and pointedly staring at him from across their tiny room, cots pushed into opposing walls, moonlight lighting his features into a grimace, as if Yusuf has personally inconvenienced him to the extreme by not quietly resting much like a mouse beneath a dank and damp floorboard, unseen and unheard by the master of the house. Often, rolling his eyes and tightening his jaw until the bones creak in Yusuf's ear, he lies back to face the wall, sleep-hungry and finally able to find repose now that Yusuf has decided not to make a nuisance of himself.

Yusuf ignores his own glimmer of a glance at Nicolò's form, the sight of an animal poised to jump across the room with muscles tensed across his shoulders beneath his sleep shirt. Ignores it as another phantom from his dreams. Because Nicolò in daylight is tight-lipped and tight-jawed and world-hungry. Whatever they see of each other during the night can't change that. 

Not that Nicolò sees much. He seems wilfully dim and unaccountably arrogant. Whatever he might be able to observe in his own right, it certainly isn't Yusuf's stark dread whenever he's woken by Nicolò's dreams in the night, the panic which grips him in that split-second before he realises what is going on and that Nicolò is safe, the subsequent apprehension of thinking _he will be gone_ —

— _(from me)_ —

— _he will leave me (all) alone_ —

—but maybe they are both losing themselves too much in these dreams, even as rarely as they do come. And he has his own hurt to contend with. Cannot carry the nightmares of another. Cannot carry ill-will and guilt when his hurt is an open wound.

He tells himself to fetch some measure of patience from between his own ribs and hold on tightly to it in the face of the scorn this man carries for him. Sleep will surely come again.

*

He imagines other lives for himself. Away. Somewhere else. Dead.

None of them are real. None of them _can_ be real.

It is what it is.

*

They are, the both of them, making an effort at language and gestures and communication. It is going as well as it can, which is to say slowly but surely, never mind it's been over a year of trial and error.

Sometimes they go days without more than a nod and a gesture to indicate _food_ — _home_ — _prayer_ , as sharply precise as a blade cutting through the air. Ultimately, it's sufficient for the purpose. For the most part, they succeed in inhabiting the same space exactly because of their restrained vocabulary. Both appear to enjoy the sea and water. They find ways to settle near enough to Nicolò's homeland so as to not attract attention. The climate is blessedly temperate, which might be partially why not only does Yusuf ignore the trepidation at remaining in the same place for far longer than is strictly speaking advisable but furthermore convinces Nicolò to relinquish his plans of travelling farther north. It truly is a shock he manages to stay them in one place given Nicolò's itchy feet, but they do. Stay.

They find a small island near what he has been told is Sicilia.

*

Once they do manage to attain some level of conversation, it mostly ends in frustrated huffs on both sides. Yusuf is stubborn and easily irritated. Nicolò is taciturn but prone to erupting into fits of sudden anger. It's an endless cycle, resentment palpable.

But habits form. Companionship comes easily once they find need in each other—to cook, to clean, to trade their wares in town. Resentment is... tiresome.

*

Shape and shadow and contour and lines. Memory is inadequate for any of it, but Yusuf has a decent enough image in his head that he can put to paper the meagre remains of reality which linger well after he has last caught sight of Nicolò's face. He hasn't the heart to set them onto the fire afterwards, although he decidedly _should_. This is... dangerous.

*

One morning Yusuf wakes for prayer to find Nicolò already up and in a foul mood. Par for the course these days, thus he hardly pays it much mind, other than to vaguely note to himself that, for once, whatever anger he perpetually carries does not seem directed at Yusuf himself.

Later, they break their fast together. The mood is a sizzling desert stone beneath cool water.

He attempts conversation, but receives next to nothing in return. He refrains from further attempts, although there lingers the seed of an idea—that Nicolò might have things to say but isn't. Yusuf endeavours to lock their eyes, communicate some measure of reassurance that talk is welcomed. He is _making an effort_ for reasons he cannot quite articulate to himself.

Chewing deliberately slowly, Nicolò takes his time to swallow around yet another clenched jaw. Upon realising he can feel lines forming in his own face from scowling, Yusuf immediately smooths it over with a disinterested expression, although he has an inkling the goat milk may have gone sour. He places his bowl back onto the table.

"You never smile," and Yusuf could say, _neither do you_ , accurate though it may be; instead, he responds with, "You're not particularly humorous." And Nicolò frowns, therefore Yusuf must ask, "Were you... making an attempt?" Truly baffled for an instant before Nicolò's face shuts down.

The rest of the morning is strained, though Yusuf cannot for the life of him figure out in what ways it differs from before.

*

One evening Yusuf returns from town late to find Nicolò in his papers. Papers he stupidly left unattended and possibly within view. Although his immediate thought is that it's his own fault, another part of him points out Nicolò had no business going through his things. Then again, it's entirely possible he left his latest sketches on the bed, facing upwards, and that Nicolò simply felt the compulsion to investigate why his face was upon, well, all of them, in some form or another. Disembodied eyes are easily recognisable when they are so very distinctive. None can rightly compare. Which is unlikely to be justification enough to quell whatever anger and disgust Nicolò is intent to bestow upon him.

Neither comes.

Yusuf can't decipher the frown. If this is Nicolò being inscrutable, he is outdoing himself. He is truly surpassing all of his previous attempts at emulating a particularly tetchy rock. Were it not for the fear freezing his veins, Yusuf would be impressed. Perhaps he should be relieved it has come to light, the farce is over, there is a mighty reason at long last for Nicolò to retrieve what little is his from their little house and leave. Yusuf scrambles to mend the rift before it can arise.

"It wasn't waiting for you. If you thought that," he explains. "They were not waiting," he repeats, mostly to himself. It's a start to an explanation, his mind working out the details, setting up the way towards excusing what Nicolò has seen. What he is still holding.

Nicolò cocks his head. "It felt as if it was."

"You're wrong." He tilts his chin forward, more than a little stubbornly, unwilling to become derailed in the plan his reeling mind is formulating. Why does Nicolò insist on wrecking everything, all the time?

Rising slowly, as if approaching an easily-startled creature by the side of the road, Nicolò makes his way over. Corners him. They don't touch, but Nicolò is like a wall of heat before him.

"Do you intend to draw more?" His fist is clutching Yusuf's papers, wrinkling the drawings. And Yusuf has a denial on his tongue, but Nicolò adds, "Only I could sit... for you." His eyes dip and his throat bobs with a heavy swallow. "If you wish it." His eyes are particularly dark.

That night, they push the cots together against one of the walls. Nicolò turns out to be a furnace at Yusuf's front. He hardly minds.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments greatly appreciated. <3 <3 <3
> 
> Tumblr: [rhubarbdreams](https://rhubarbdreams.tumblr.com/)


End file.
